MIDDLE EAST:Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert promised "restraint" and "patience" in the face of early Palestinian violations of a truce that went into effect yesterday morning and which promises to be the best chance to end five months of Israeli-Palestinian bloodshed.
Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas and Hamas prime minister Ismail Haniyeh both vowed that all Palestinian armed factions would observe the ceasefire. Under orders from Mr Abbas, thousands of Palestinian policemen began deploying in northern Gaza yesterday afternoon to prevent militants from firing rockets into Israel.
Several rockets were fired shortly after the truce went into effect at 6am and landed in open areas. A close aide to Mr Abbas said the president viewed the rocket fire as a "violation and urges all to abide by the agreement".
Ghazi Hamad, a spokesman for Hamas, said the Islamic movement, which swept to power in parliamentary elections last January, was "committed completely to this agreement and we will not allow anyone to break this agreement".
Mr Haniyeh, who helped secure the truce agreement among armed factions, said its success also depended on "an end to Israeli aggression against the Palestinian people". In a telephone conversation with Mr Abbas on Saturday evening, Mr Olmert heard that Palestinian armed groups had agreed to a ceasefire and he confirmed that Israel, in return, would cease all its military operations in Gaza. By 6am yesterday, the last Israeli soldier had left the Strip.
More than 400 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli troops since the military launched an extended foray into Gaza after an Israeli soldier was taken captive by Hamas militants in a cross-border raid in late June. Most of those killed have been militants, but a large number of civilians have also died in Israeli raids, including 19 members of an extended family, who were killed by a wayward Israeli shell earlier this month in the northern Gaza town of Beit Hanoun.
After the soldier was snatched, the military action soon changed tack, with the army focusing its efforts in northern Gaza in an attempt to stem the rocket fire. The raids however failed to halt the salvos and during November Palestinian militants stepped up the shelling of the southern Israeli town of Sderot, killing two civilians and terrorising residents, many of whom have fled out of range of the rockets.
"Even though there are still violations of the ceasefire by the Palestinian side, I have instructed our defence officials not to respond, to show restraint and to give this ceasefire a chance to take full effect," Mr Olmert said.
Israeli officials are hoping that if the ceasefire holds, the resulting calm could lead to the release of Cpl Gilad Shalit, the abducted Israeli soldier, who is still being held captive in Gaza. The Palestinians are hoping that this will in turn bring about the release of hundreds of prisoners being held in Israeli jails.
If the truce endures further - there are few who believe it will - it could lead to a long-awaited meeting between Mr Olmert and Mr Abbas and to talks on how to revive long-moribund peace negotiations.
"All of these things ultimately could lead to one thing - the opening of serious, real, open and direct negotiations between us," Mr Olmert said, "so that we can move forward towards a comprehensive agreement between us and the Palestinians."
A let-up in hostilities and an end to rocket fire on Sderot - Mr Olmert has drawn criticism for the military's inability to prevent the daily barrage on the southern town - could provide the prime minister with some welcome respite. In the wake of the war in Lebanon, which the Israeli public believes Mr Olmert badly mismanaged, his approval ratings have remained perilously low.
A truce could also bolster Mr Abbas, who has been struggling to bring an end to hostilities as part of his plan to cobble together a Palestinian national unity government and convince the world to lift crippling sanctions on his people.
With Hamas refusing to recognise Israel and to declare it will honour all previous agreements, the Palestinians have been deprived of hundreds of millions of dollars in western aid since the Islamic movement formed a government earlier this year.